Mars Lander investigation might be fruitless, expert says

Posted: Tuesday, December 07, 1999

MATTHEW FORDAHLAP Science Writer

PASADENA, Calif. - With hope fading fast for the Mars Polar Lander, NASA investigators might have to face the possibility of never really knowing what went wrong with the spacecraft 157 million miles from Earth.

The space agency has only scant information on the final moments of the $165 million spacecraft's attempt to land on Mars, and no hope of recovering any wreckage.

"It may be that everything went right, and it simply landed in a terrible spot," said physics professor Robert Park, a University of Maryland expert on the space program. "Who knows if it landed on a big boulder and fell over?"

"We just don't know, and we never will, is my guess," he said.

For NASA, the loss would mean back-to-back Mars expeditions ended in failure.

Mission controllers planned another attempt early Tuesday to detect a signal from the spacecraft, which has not been heard from since it began its descent Friday. Two microprobes that were to have landed separately also were lost.

No signal during the next window would eliminate one explanation for the spacecraft's silence - that it was in a slumbering "safe mode" caused by some problem after landing, said Laurie Leshin, a member of the Lander's science team.

"We think this is one of our last really good chances," she said Monday.

Other possible explanations: the spacecraft burned up in the atmosphere, crash-landed on the Red Planet, or experienced some kind of problem with its antenna or computer.

It could be two weeks before the mission is declared a failure, said Richard Cook, the spacecraft's operations manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

If the mission did fail, one critical piece of information could be acquired by the powerful cameras of NASA's orbiting Mars Global Surveyor, a satellite that is mapping the surface of Mars. Cook said NASA will look for evidence of the Lander's parachute on Mars.

The satellite's eyes are not strong enough to see the Lander itself, he said.

As in the aftermath of the Sept. 23 loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter, NASA would appoint a failure review board of internal and outside experts to study every aspect of the mission from its development to disappearance.